Duane Eddy

Duane Eddy severed his relationship with Gretsch when Fender took
over distribution. Consequently there are no more Gretsch Duane Eddy Guitars
being made ever again. Which is a real loss because The Duane Eddy Model
was one of the stepped up versions and will most definitely be a collectable
very valuable guitar. The guitar was introduced in 1997 and by the time they
were just starting to ramp up production the model was discontinued.

Ed Roman Guitars has 1 in stock and if you are interested it
is for sale. Price will escalate depending on how long I have it.

Gretsch Introduces 6120 Duane Eddy
Electric Guitar

July 11, 1997

Forty years after Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Duane
Eddy purchased his first Gretsch guitar in Phoenix, the Gretsch
Duane Eddy 6120 electric guitars are being introduced by Fred
Gretsch Enterprises. Two Duane Eddy models are faithful
reproductions of Duane's classic 1957 6120.

"My '57 red Gretsch has been part of the Duane Eddy sound
since the day I got it," explained Duane. "I still have that guitar
and it's still my #1 instrument. We have worked hard to make sure
that these new guitars are as close as we can get to that old
classic."

The Gretsch Duane Eddy 6120 incorporates many of the design
features of the early Gretsch 6120 models. Single coil DynaSonicTM
pickups provide a sharp, clear tone and are identical to the
guitar's original DeArmond pickups. Even the Bigsby tailpiece is
authentic to the era, bringing back a Bigsby handle not available
since the 1950's.

"We are delighted to have a Gretsch guitar with Duane's name
and stamp of approval on it. It has been a long time coming and we
are thrilled," stated Fred Gretsch, president of Fred Gretsch
Enterprises. "We are very selective with the artists we work with at
Gretsch. An artist must have a longtime visibility with a brand for
an artist instrument to be viable. With Duane, forty years of
playing Gretsch makes the Duane Eddy model a natural."

Two distinctive finishes will be available for this guitar. A
new Gretsch finish, Ebony Burst, has a gray to black tone which
highlights the guitar's mix of gold and silver hardware. Of course,
it will also be available in Gretsch Orange.

The Duane Eddy 6120 also has an ebony fingerboard with
humped-block inlay, headstock with the Gretsch horseshoe logo, and
brass nut. Electronics include two DynaSonicTM pickups,
pickup selector switch, master volume and tone controls, individual
pickup volume controls. The guitar's body is 16" wide and 3" deep.
The Gretsch Duane Eddy models G6120-DE (ebony burst) and G6120-DEO
(orange finish) will be available September, 1997 with a suggested
retail price of $4500.

Duane
Eddy's instrumental hits from the late '50s can sound unduly basic
and repetitive (especially when taken all at once), but he was
vastly influential. Perhaps the most successful instrumental rocker
of his time, he may have also been the man most responsible (along
with Chuck Berry) for popularizing the electric rock guitar. His
distinctively low, twangy riffs could be heard on no less than 15
Top Forty hits between 1958 and 1963. He was also one of the first
rock stars to successfully crack the LP market.

Duane Eddy was born in Corning, New York, in
1938. Eddy started playing the guitar at age five and moved with his
family to Phoenix, Arizona area at thirteen. At sixteen he dropped
out of high school, obtained a Chet Atkins model Gretsch guitar,
performing locally, and met multi-instrumentalist Al Casey in 1955.
It was while playing with Casey's group, that Eddy devised the
technique of playing lead on his guitar's bass strings to produce a
low, reverberant "twangy" sound.

In 1957 Eddy met Lee Hazlewood, an Arizona disc jockey who wrote
songs and published music. By the late '50s, Hazlewood had branched
out into production and had his own recording studio Before Duane
began recording, his principal influence had been Chet Atkins, but
at Hazlewood's suggestion, he started concentrating on guitar lines
at the lower end of the strings. His opening riff of his debut
single, "Movin' and Groovin'," cowritten with Hazelwood, would be
lifted for the Beach Boys five years later to open "Surfin' U.S.A."
The song was sent to Dick Clark and Eddy was signed to a contract
with Jamie Records. It was the next 45, "Rebel Rouser," that would
really break him as a national star, reaching the Top Ten in 1958.
Opening with a down-and-dirty, heavily echoed guitar riff, it
remains the tune with which he's most often identified.

Eddy's phenomenally successful run of hits over the next few years
was to some extent a variation on the "Rebel Rouser" theme. With
cowboy whoops from the backup band helping driving things along,
they weren't nearly as innovative as work of Link Wray during the
same era, but they were much more popular. The singles -- "Peter
Gunn," "Cannonball," "Shazam," and "Forty Miles of Bad Road" were
probably the best -- also did their part to help keep the raunchy
spirit of rock & roll alive, during a time in which it was in danger
of being watered down. Much of that raunch was not solely due to
Eddy himself, but to the honking sax solos of Steve Douglas, who
would go on to become one of the top session players in the
industry. Duane would have his biggest hit, however, in 1960, when
he sweetened the twang with strings for the movie theme "Because
They're Young."

Eddy's
records were also huge influences on legions of budding guitar
players. In England, the Shadows no doubt took Eddy as one of their
chief inspirations for their spare, moody sound, as one listen to
their most famous hit, "Apache," makes obvious. More subtly, his
influence can also be heard in the work of George Harrison. For
evidence, listen to the growling riffs that decorate the verse of "I
Want to Hold Your Hand."

Eddy started to lose momentum in the early '60s, and left Hazelwood
and the Jamie label in 1962 for the much bigger RCA. There he had a
moderate hit with instrumental version of " The Palladin Ballad,"
the theme from the CBS television western Have Gone Will Travel,
in which he also appeared "(Dance with the) Guitar Man," which
featured an atypical chorus of female chorus dubbed the Rebelettes
(actually Darlene Love and the Blossoms), would be his last Top 20
hit that same year. His albums -- often based on loose themes, like
A Million Dollars Worth of Twang, Twisting with Duane Eddy,
and Surfing with Duane Eddy -- kept him afloat to some
degree. But his style doggedly refused evolution, although scattered
cuts indicate he was capable of abandoning the twang for more bluesy
or straight-out rock sounds.

The British Invasion wiped Duane out
commercially, although he recorded intermittently for RCA, Colpix,
and Reprise through the '60s with little success. Eddy appeared in a
straight dramatic role in the 1968 motorcycle movie The Savage
Seven and later moved to California. He backed B.J. Thomas's
1972 hit "Rock and Roll Lullaby" and produced Phil Everly's 1973
album Star Spangled Springer. He moved to Lake Tahoe in
1976 and had a British-only hit with " Play Me Like You Would Play
Your Guitar" in 1975 and a country only hit with "You Are My
Sunshine," backed by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson.

Eddy returned to live performing in 1983, backed
by Ry Cooder and Steve Douglas In 1986, he enjoyed a brief comeback
when the Art of Noise built their "Peter Gunn" hit around his guest
contributions; Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ry Cooder, and Jeff
Lynne all helped produce a 1987 album. It's that run of late-'50s
and early-'60s hits, though, for which he'll principally be
remembered.